KU freshman to receive $1,500 Charnon scholarship for leadership skills

LAWRENCE -- University of Kansas freshman Adam Hannaford will receive the 2003-2004 A. Patrick Charnon Memorial Scholarship, the Center for Education Solutions, a San-Francisco-based, all-volunteer nonprofit organization, has announced.

Hannaford, a freshman in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, is the son of Roy and Eileen Hannaford of Tulsa, Okla. and is a Jenks high school graduate. He was selected from among 549 applicants representing 347 colleges and universities across the nation.

Each year since 1992, the center has awarded $1,500 scholarships to full-time undergraduate students as demonstrated the values of compassion, tolerance and respect for all people.

As a member of the Cherokee Nation, Hannaford devoted himself at 16 to his Native American community, asking to be a member of the Native American Council. His presence and leadership skills led him to be elected as council president with duties that included oversight of $200,000 of government grant money earmarked for Native Americans in his area. He had to familiarize himself with the regulations governing these grants and manage requests that exceeded the amounts available to the council, evaluating and prioritizing the requests to achieve the greatest impact.

Rhett Bratt, president of The Center for Education Solutions said, "The selection committee was impressed by the diversity and the quality of the applicants for this year's scholarship. From all the worthy applicants, however, the committee felt Adam Hannaford best demonstrated Pat Charnon's values of tolerance, compassion and respect for all people through his words and actions."

Hannaford is an outspoken advocate for education to a population of students dramatically underrepresented in post-secondary schools. He organized and delivered a seminar for Native American families with junior and senior high school students, where he shared his story and gave these students, many of whom did not see a college path for themselves, a map to follow so they could at least explore the possibility. He also explained the application and testing processes and timing, demystifying them for families with little or no frame of reference. He continues his involvement in this program even after his college enrollment.

Despite his deep commitment to college education, he also recognizes that people choose different paths.

"Each person is going to seek their blend, the tool by which they will make a difference in this world. For my brother, it's the Marine Corps," Hannaford wrote in his scholarship submission essay. "Learning to respect the lifestyle my brother had chosen really helped me to understand the different lifestyles have different levels of competencies and I need to be tolerant of other people's choice, even when they're different from mine."

The A. Patrick Charnon Memorial Scholarship helps students afford high quality undergraduate education in their chosen fields of study. The scholarship honors the memory of Pat Charnon, a shoe merchant in Beloit, Wis.,who was an inspiration to many young people until his untimely death from cancer in 1987. With the memory of his remarkable generosity and his strong commitment to education, the friends and family of Pat Charnon have joined The Center for Education Solutions to establish the A. Patrick Charnon Memorial Scholarship.

Since its inception, the Charnon Scholarship program has attracted more than 10,000 applicants from all over the United States Ð as well as from foreign students attending college in the United States. The Center is currently accepting applications for its 2004-05 award. Founded in 1991, The Center for Education Solutions is an all-volunteer nonprofit organization devoted to education issues. The Center's website is www.cesresources.org.